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Facebook has promised to hire thousands of human reviewers to police violent and illegal posts after widespread criticism of the social network's failure to censor content.

The internet giant's boss Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook will add 3,000 moderators, almost doubling the number of people employed to review terrorist material, child exploitation videos and hate speech.

It comes after MPs attacked Facebook and other technology firms for allowing illegal material to spread online, potentially reaching audiences of millions.

If we're going to build a safe community, we need to respond quicklyMark Zuckerberg

Earlier this week, the Home Affairs Committee said Facebook, Google and Twitter had been "completely irresponsible and indefensible" and demanded they should pay for investigations into crimes over their networks.

Facebook has insisted it is committed to addressing illegal content, but the new investment is an indication that it could be doing more. The social network, which has almost 2 billion users, receives millions of reports every week about illegal or offensive posts.

Zuckerberg said that Facebook will make it easier for users to report videos and will work more closely with police. He said the company has been "reflecting on how we could do better for our community".

"If we're going to build a safe community, we need to respond quickly. We're working to make these videos easier to report so we can take the right action sooner - whether that's responding quickly when someone needs help or taking a post down," he said.

He said Facebook will hire 3,000 people on top of the 4,500 already employed in its "community operations team" over the next year.

Zuckerberg specifically referenced incidents in which violent videos were either uploaded or broadcast live. The incident in Thailand came just days after a man in Cleveland posted a video of himself murdering a 74-year-old man, and then boasting about the video on Facebook Live.

However, Zuckerberg added the moderators will also respond to posts exploiting children or promoting terrorism. "These reviewers will also help us get better at removing things we don't allow on Facebook like hate speech and child exploitation," he said.